Stripper wells are oil or gas wells that are either non-producing or yield very little oil, generally less than three barrels a day. Because of their low yield, these wells are often abandoned due to the cost to recover the oil. Over time, however, these wells often can recover so that, often for a limited time, oil can be once again be extracted from the well. Many times these wells are often sold or leased in hopes of recovering oil that may have accumulated in the wells. Several techniques have been developed for extracting oil in these wells. They include placing pump jacks having timers set to operate the pump at known oil recovery intervals. Conventional recovery devices include bailers and air jets techniques. Each of these techniques has the disadvantage that each is unable to determine the depth at which oil resides in the well, and the amount of recoverable oil in the well.
Before these recovery techniques are used it would be advantageous to determine the depth at which oil can be found in the well, and if there is mineralized water present, at what depth such mineralized water exists. This information could be used to determine how much oil is available to recover and to evaluate whether it is worth recovering.